A Knockout at the Walla Walla Athletic Club
A boxing match ends in less than a round, leaving the crowd stunned and the challenger dazed.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Reilly-Wardinsky bout at the Walla Walla Athletic club last night proved to be a repeat of the Wardinsky-Wade match two weeks ago. Two minutes after the gong sounded, Reilly was declared the winner, with Wardinsky's seconds working hard to bring him out of a daze. The rapid work of the men from the start took the breath out of the 600 people who filled the club rooms. The men sparred briefly and then clashed. After Wardinsky went down three times, Reilly was declared the victor. The evening included wrestling between Professor Burns and James Trythall, along with a spirited bout between two youngsters, James Casey and a lad named Richards.
“Two minutes after the gong sounded for the men to begin work Reilly was declared the winner and Wardinsky's seconds were working hard over their man to bring him out of a daze.”
Amateur and semi-pro boxing matches were staples of early 20th-century Walla Walla social life, often filling local halls with hundreds of spectators. Today, such community-centered boxing has largely moved to professional regional circuits, though the appetite for a fast, local clash remains a constant in the city's sporting culture.
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